It’s funny, when I dip into my on-the-go list of ideas for Daily Reminder topics, I sometimes find one that’s remarkably similar to another, but separated in time by mere weeks.
It’s the same insight—the same thing I’ve seen—but it’s as if this whole being-human malarkey is set up for us to forget, and forget again… and then forget some more. No matter how many times we see through the mind’s tricks!
Which is the whole raison d'être for the Daily Reminders. I figure that if I forget—when I help people with this stuff on a daily basis!—then you probably do too.
💝
So the other day I was talking about the mind working in absolutes: right/wrong, good/bad, always/never, and I spoke about “Not buying a ticket to Neverland.”
And lo, what should I find here in my ideas list…?
An article about its bedfellow: ‘Always’
I’m doing a recovery ride on the turbo trainer, and notice I’ve got a quite a bit of knee pain. (The previous day I’d ridden 200km & 3,100m climbing; it's hardly surprising.)
I know my body, what it’s capable of, how it responds. (It’s why I’m doing a super-easy spin on the indoor trainer, in the first place!)
But the mind… oh god, the bloody mind!! 😫
- 📦🗣️ “This is it now.”
- 📦🗣️ “I won’t be able to do big rides any more.”
- 📦🗣️ “I’ve pushed it too far this time.”
- 📦🗣️ “This is only going to get worse.”
- 📦🗣️ “I’m going to have to take a whole load of time off and I’ll lose all my fitness.”
- 📦🗣️ “This is how I am: all, or nothing. I've overdone it again, and a period of ‘nothing’ is coming.”
Yada yada yada yada… on it goes.
Why?
I think it’s because the mind is not involved in change, so it can't comprehend it.
It's not its job to come up with solutions, or to get fresh perspectives on things. It doesn’t do ‘changes of heart’.
All it’s ever really doing is observing, and commentating. Little machine, processing away.
So it says things won't change. This is it. Things will always be this way.
You know what?
⚠️ It genuinely believes that.
It’s not malicious or anything, it’s just working at the limits of what it knows.
(Which isn’t much, in the big scheme of things.)
The problem is, it's so easy to take its chat for granted. To see it as reality, when it’s the opposite: it’s pulling us away from reality (i.e. Now).
I confess, there on the indoor bike, I’d been worrying for quite a while, following along with its commentary, letting it grow and become more serious by the minute… before I realised what I was doing.
😲
So what’s the solution?
There are three steps.
First, you have to notice it first.
You have to be in tune with the signs:
- stress
- tightness
- urgency
- constriction
- worry.
Second, you have to know what these signs mean:
(Nothing else. Those feelings mean nothing more.)
And third, you drop it. You stop rewarding it with attention.
You stop turning to it for advice, because it doesn’t know anything about anything. It’s just regurgitating old data.
It’s ‘always’ going to say ‘always’ - that’s its thing.
You don’t have to get involved.
Try it and see what happens – let me know how you get on, in the comments!
💟
Giles
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Giles P Croft
‘Never’ and ‘always’: the mind's two greatest hits!
Giles P Croft
Observing. Commentating. Observing. Commentating.